CHILD DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVES Gaps in Childhood Injury Research and Prevention: What Can Developmental Scientists Contribute? Barbara A. Morrongiello 1 and David C. Schwebel 2 1 University of Guelph and 2 University of Alabama at Birmingham ABSTRACT—Unintentional injury is the leading cause of pediatric mortality in most of the developed world. Contributions from epidemiology, pubic health, and engineering perspectives have yielded important insights into risk and protective factors, but recent calls for research stress the need for behavioral science to advance understanding and prevention of childhood injuries. Limiting its focus to children younger than 13 years, this article identifies 4 gaps in the literature on childhood injury and discusses how developmental sci- ence might address these research needs by (a) applying developmental theory and conceptual approaches to understand the processes by which children are injured, (b) examining the role of developmental processes in injury risk, (c) identifying the bases for group differences in injury related to gender and cultural influences, and (d) exploring how family processes and relationships affect injury risk. KEYWORDS—children; unintentional injury; prevention; research gaps In recent years, industrialized countries have made great advances to minimize child deaths due to infectious diseases, poor nutrition, and unsanitary conditions. In contrast, injury rates have not decreased to the same extent. In fact, in most industrialized countries, unintentional injuries rank as the leading cause of death for children older than 1 year (Canadian Institute of Child Health, 2002; National Center for Injury Prevention and Control [NCIPC], 2007) and account for more deaths in the United States than the next 20 leading causes of child mortality (NCIPC, 2007). Injuries also account for a sub- stantial number of visits to emergency departments, with one in four children in the United States treated for an injury annually (Scheidt et al., 1995) and 29% of children’s emergency room visits attributable to injury (Weiss, Dill, Garrison, & Coben, 1997). The direct cost of childhood injury is more than $50 billion annually in the United States (Finkelstein, Corso, & Miller, 2006). The personal costs are immeasurable. Although many people view injuries as a ‘‘natural part of childhood’’ or due to ‘‘bad luck’’ (Morrongiello & Dayler, 1996) and ‘‘not something that can be prevented’’ (Peterson, Farmer, & Kashani, 1990), increasingly, the term injury has come to replace accident in the literature because the latter denotes a chance event that is not preventable, and most pediatric injuries do not fall into this category. For example, a review of the circumstances of injury-related child deaths over a 4-year period in Arizona indicated that more than 90% of these events were judged preventable (Rimsza, Schackner, Bowen, & Marshall, 2002). In fact, because most childhood injuries are thought to be preventable, there have been numerous calls from government (e.g., NCIPC, 2002) and scientific (e.g., Gielen & Sleet, 2003; Miller, Romano, & Spicer, 2000) sources both for research to advance our understanding of risk factors for injury and for programs to prevent injuries. One thing that distinguishes recent calls for research on child injury from earlier ones is the emphasis on behavioral science research. A national review of injury experts in Canada, for example, listed behavioral studies of injury risk as among the most pressing needs to be addressed (Brison, Mustard, & chairs, 2004). Similarly, recent appeals for behavioral scientists to partner with injury experts have emphasized the role that psychological processes play (e.g., cognitions, perceptions, attitudes) and noted that developmental and social processes Preparation of this article was supported by a grant to Barbara A. Morrongiello from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Barbara A. Morrongiello, Department of Psychology, University of Guelph, MacKinnon Building, 5th Floor, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1; e-mail: bmorrong@uoguelph.ca. # 2008, Copyright the Author(s) Journal Compilation # 2008, Society for Research in Child Development Volume 2, Number 2, Pages 78–84